Crime: Mystery of the body under the pool returns to shake sleepy LA suburb

Miguel Raygoza mows the lawn at the former home of John and Linda Sohus. Human remains believed to belong to John Sohus were unearthed at the property in 1994. Photograph: Paul Buck/EPA

In May 1994, when workers installing a swimming pool in a property in San Marino, California, discovered human remains, it caused a considerable stir. "When they found that head, there was a big deal in town," says Yann Eldnor, known to people of a certain age in this quiet town as Yann the Swede.

The big deal, however, didn't last long. In June 1994, OJ Simpson's wife and a friend were found murdered. The attention of LA and the rest of the world drifted away from San Marino and the human remains found in a backyard.

But now, attention is returning to the city. "People are really upset now," says Eldnor. "There are many people who know a lot but they do not want to talk because they don't like it."

The unwelcome whiff of scandal has been brought back to the well-heeled suburb of Los Angeles by Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter - a German also known as Christian Gerhard Streiter, Clark Rockefeller, Christopher Chichester, Christopher Mountbatten Crowe, JP Clark Rockefeller, James Frederick, Michael Brown and Chip Smith.

Last week, LA detectives travelled to Boston to interview a man using one of those names, Clark Rockefeller, who faces charges of kidnapping, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and endangering a minor. LA police, however, recognised him as the man they knew as Christopher Chichester.

Rockefeller sparked off a week-long manhunt after allegedly kidnapping his daughter, who lives in London with her mother, during a parental visit in Boston last month. But the LA detectives had more serious matters on their minds. They were following up leads on a cold case: the disappearance of a young married couple that had mystified the community of San Marino back in 1985. Chichester was the couple's lodger at the time of their disappearance.

In 1994, 10 years after they vanished, the disappearance of John and Linda Sohus became more than mysterious. Human remains were wrapped in three plastic bags tied together with twine and buried 4ft (1.2 metres) underground at the house on Lorain Road. Forensic analysis revealed that the remains belonged to an adult white male.

Police attention turned to Chichester, described as a young British aristocrat, who had rented the guest house at the back of the property and disappeared a few months later.

According to Eldnor, Chichester/Rockefeller lived with several families in the town, charming his way in the door, before moving on once inconsistencies in his story became apparent.

"He was a smooth talker, especially with the ladies," says Eldnor, who arrived in the US in 1970 and cuts a distinctive figure in his black clogs, peach shirt, long beard and cowboy hat. "When he met the ladies he kissed their hands, he would open doors for them. American guys don't do that."

The olde world charm extended to a penchant for arthouse movies and film noir. His favourite film, according to one former friend, was Double Indemnity, the noir classic that tells the tale of a wife and lover who murder her husband for the insurance money. It ends badly.

"I was surprised how many smart people in San Marino looked up to him," says Eldnor. "There was something wrong with the guy. He was a flaky guy. His story shifted and changed."

One anecdote has it that the inside of Chichester's tatty car was adorned with sticky notes to help him remember parts of his story. A couple who had breakfast with him on several occasions tell how he said he was working to dismantle a church in England and ship it out to the US. For $75,000, (£40,000) he told them, they could be part of the scheme.

"What struck me as funny," says Robert Almanza, 77, a retired teacher. "was that he said he was working in film and television. But when I asked how many TV sets he had, he said, 'I don't own a TV. I don't like it'."

Almanza, in common with almost everyone who remembers meeting Chichester, describes him as charming, neat, helpful - and full of bull. "Sure, he was plausible," says John Harris, 82. "But how can you be that plausible? A con artist is a con artist."

Whatever he was, Chichester was welcomed into the hearts of the decent folk of San Marino: he joined the Rotary Club, the City Club and the Chamber of Commerce; he even hosted a weekly cable-TV show called Inside San Marino.

This week, after refusing to speak to detectives, the man in prison in Boston for kidnapping his daughter started to remember a few things about the lost years before 1993. He remembered he had been to California, according to his lawyer. And he remembered the couple.

"He lived in a separate house in the back, and dealt mostly with the mother, his landlord," the lawyer, Stephen Hrones, said. "He certainly doesn't remember murdering anyone there."

By the end of the week, police were struggling to make sense of what the sheriff's department spokesman, Steve Whitmore, described as "a very complicated investigation". So complicated that the department ordered a "security hold" on the case, barring anyone involved from discussing it with the media.

One reason for that could be that over the intervening years the evidence was destroyed. The upper and lower jaw found in the backyard are missing, probably cremated, according to an official at the coroner's office.

On Thursday forensic scientists were due to re-examine a bloodstain recovered in 1994 from the guesthouse. The bloodstain was first reported in 1995 on a TV show called Unsolved Mysteries.

However, even with all the evidence recovered at the time, detectives face a problem: because John Sohus was adopted and his birth parents have not been found, a DNA match is unlikely. And Linda Sohus, last seen at age 28 in 1985, is still missing, her fate unknown.

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